From The Other Side
by WerewolfDoctor
Summary: Some scenes from the Dresden Files seen from the other character's point of view. Chapter 1 - A Kiss in the Hospital (End of Skin Game - Murphy's POV) Chapter 2 - 'That' conversation from Dead Beat about sex holidays and plant watering duties from Murphy's POV
1. Chapter 1

Butters left us alone and the atmosphere turned … different. Not tense, just different.

'You're going to have to take care of yourself,' I reminded Harry. He would run himself to the bone if he were left to his own devices. But he knew by now that I would break the rest of his bones to get him to rest, even from my hospital bed. He didn't need me to tell him. I kept on talking anyway.

'Over the next few weeks. Rest. Give yourself a chance to heal. Keep the wound on your leg clean. Get to a doctor and get that arm into a proper cast. I know you can't feel it, but it's important that-'

Harry kissed me. I normally would've punched any man who kissed me without warning or permission like that and I felt myself tensing, pulling back.

Until I wasn't. I relaxed and – God it was good.

Hadn't we decided not to do this? There were reasons. I'm sure they were very important. I just couldn't think of them right now.

I let out an involuntary moan and I felt him give a triumphant little grin. I found myself grinning back.

Murphy and Dresden. We were good at kissing.

Then I wound my good arm around Harry's neck, pulled him closer and didn't think about anything else for some time.

When we broke away I leant against Harry, but I almost didn't want to look at him. It had, for a moment, seemed easy. Now we were _us_ again. Complicated.

'We do crazy things for love,' Harry said quietly, taking my hand and curling his fingers around mine. I nearly laughed at the sight; his hand was so much stupidly larger than mine. But I was distracting myself from what he was really saying: It was time to stop pretending what we felt about each other. We had gone to hell and back together, very nearly literally. I had broken a holy sword because I couldn't stand to see him in pain. Hell, even freaking Nicodemus could see the way we felt about each other. I loved him and I knew he felt the same about me. Had known for a long time.

I swallowed thickly and my cheeks felt hot. I still didn't look at him. He knew.

'I want you to rest and get better too,' he said. 'We have some things to do.'

'Like what?' I asked.

Harry smiled and his eyes glittered, 'Things I've only dreamed about.'

I was distracted by the way his voice suddenly dropped a couple of octaves that it took me a while to get what he was referring to, 'Oh,' I breathed and remembered the surreal moment in the middle of all the madness when I'd walked in on Harry clearly having just woken from a sex dream. I'd assumed – well let's just say I'm not exactly unattractive, but in the supernatural world, you get supernatural beauties, and whilst Dresden wouldn't hook up with them in real life, a fantasy is a fantasy. 'That. That was … was me?'

'That was you,' he confirmed. 'Seems fair. It was your bed.' And I felt so stupidly happy, which I blamed on the morphine, that I wasn't even angry with Harry for making another one of his stupid jokes.

Harry picked up hand and kissed each one of my fingers. I tried not to shiver. Harry got moves. When had Harry gotten moves? When had he changed from the awkward, lanky PI I sometimes called on, to someone with moves?

'I'm on so many drugs right now,' I murmured and, just because I could, I kissed him again. A nurse came in and cleared her throat more than once, but I let her wait. I wasn't finished with my lanky PI just yet.

The kiss ended and I let out another little laugh. Really, I was on the best drugs. Then I sobered a little, 'You better go now Dresden,' I said. 'They probably want to do more tests. It'd be unfortunate if the hospital exploded.'

Harry nodded, then leant to give me one last kiss on the neck, before turning to whisper in my ear, 'Just remember, don't forget about the screaming,' before turning to jump up and away before I could hit him.

…

After an interminable amount of tests I was just about ready to sleep when I felt something hard in my pocket. It was (wrapped in some truly disgusting socks) a bundle of diamonds, 'Oh,' I breathed. 'I'm going to kill him.'

Rawlins, who'd been in the room with me, gathering his things to leave for the night, looked at me, 'Who?'

I startled. I'd forgotten he was there. 'Harry,' I said.

'Really? You seemed to be getting on fine just a moment ago.'

I covered up my blush with a glare and held up the little sock of diamonds 'Look, he left me some of the diamonds.' Rawlins simply raised an eyebrow. We'd known each other long enough that that said enough, 'They're dirty, Rawlins, they…' I trailed off, I couldn't really explain. They had been stolen from the Underworld with the help of a literal Fallen Angel. It was a little dirtier than being smuggled by the Outfit.

Rawlins made a 'Humph' sound, and then said, 'but Harry … got them?'

'In a manner of speaking,' I said.

'And you helped?' I ground my teeth instead of answering, but Rawlins took that for an answer. 'So you earned them,' he said.

'That's not the point.'

Rawlins grinned and turned to leave, 'Doesn't really matter, he's not going to take them back. He's as stubborn as you.'

I sighed. Rawlins was right, besides I was already thinking of all the different things I could do with a bunch of diamonds. It would be nice for the BFS not to have to rely on Marcone or the White Court for money. It wouldn't be permanent, but a little injection of funds couldn't hurt.

I was still going to kill Harry, but only after I'd said thank you. Properly.


	2. Chapter 2

As I walked away from Harry I found myself more confused than ever. For a moment I had wanted him to … I don't know. Make some objection to me going. I mean he had, but not in the way I didn't know I had wanted him to object. Did I want him to make some big cheesy romcom confession and declare I couldn't go because he loved me? I mean, I didn't, obviously. One of the things I lov-liked about Harry was that he always respected me, and my decisions. If I told him to back off, he backed off. He kept me informed and didn't try to 'keep me safe' by not telling me anything anymore, or just telling me what to do. At least, anymore. We had had come to respect each other enough for that.

And he just had told me what I was doing was stupid, but it was. Any friend would be concerned. I could admit that. No matter which way I looked at it going on a sex holiday with a _professional assassin_ was a terrible idea. Kincaid should be one of the people I was trying to kill. But the sex was so good.

I guess I was just a fluffy headed girly after all.

But this wasn't solving the problem at hand. Harry Dresden. Harry Fucking Dresden. And fucking Harry Dresden.

I couldn't do this again. Everyone thought that dating Rich would be a great idea because he was my best friend and he and I were in the same line of work. Shared the same madness. And look how that turned out. I didn't want that to happen to Harry and me. We were great friends, but a great friendship could turn into a terrible relationship, and there were things I didn't know, would Harry want kids? Was he still hung up on Susan?

Dammit, _stop it_. I didn't even know if Harry was actually interested. Well, Thomas had told me practically everyday that Harry was interested but I didn't really consider him a reliable source. He might be close to Harry, but the likelihood that Harry had actually confided in him was less than zero and despite what Thomas said, I didn't regard him as an expert on romance. The nudges Mouse had been giving me, on the other hand…

That dog was intelligent. I still wasn't sure to what degree. Whether he was a good romance detector remained to be seen.

I banged my head on the back of the taxi seat. I couldn't be thinking about this now. At this rate I wouldn't enjoy my sex holiday.

The driver made professional sympathetic noises and I said something about stress and needing to get away. The driver nodded wisely and said something about Halloween.

Halloween. That triggered something in my memory. Harry always said the barriers between worlds were thinner around Halloween, whatever that meant. God, I hoped I wasn't abandoning him to whatever weirdness always seemed to happen around him.

 _Don't think like that_ , I told myself sternly _. You don't have to deal with everything. You deserve a holiday._

I remembered with a jolt that Halloween was also Dresden's birthday. Not that he ever celebrated it. Maybe I should've gotten him something. A first aid kit. Something to replace that stupid revolver he insisted made him look like Indiana Jones. A card.

I sighed. I was never going to be able to relax on this stupid holiday with this explosion of 'what the hell are my stupid feelings now?'

 _Focus on the sex holiday, Murphy. Have good sex. Deal with the feelings later._

…

'So … I missed the apocalypse?'

'I mean, technically not, since by definition the apocalypse is the end of the world and the world is undeniably still here,' said Butters, then caught the look on my face. 'I mean … yes. There were zombies, lots of super powered terminator zombies, and Harry rode a zombie T-Rex powered by Polka to fight evil necromancers. Who controlled the zombies.'

I opened my mouth to ask questions. Then closed it. There were too many questions.

I turned to Harry, who seemed to be mostly bandages. He was stubbornly refusing to go to the hospital as usual, and since he was conscious was unfortunately getting the final say. He smiled weakly, 'I watered the plants,' he rasped. I glanced around. There were no more plants.

'Right,' I said. 'Great work,' I sighed and shook my head. 'I leave you alone for a week and look what happens.'

Dresden gave a half smile, 'Well, you obviously shouldn't leave me unsupervised.'

I cocked my head slightly. The words were our usual banter but the tone was more, _Don't leave me again._

 _Dammit, Murphy, Shut it. If you start obsessing over it, it'll only lead to misery._ That was it. I wouldn't think about it.

Yeah.


End file.
